this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by brbposting@sh.itjust.works to c/196@lemmy.blahaj.zone
 

alt-textIt blows our hivemind that the United States doesn't use the ISO 216 paper size standard (A4, A5 and the gang).

Like, we consider ourselves worldly people and are aware of America's little idiosyncrasies like mass incarceration, the widespread availability of assault weapons and not being able to transfer money via your banking app, but come on - look how absolutely great it is to be European:

The American mind cannot comprehend this diagram

[Diagram of paper sizes as listed below]

ISO 216 A series papers formats

AO

A1

A3

A5

A7

A6

Et.

A4

Instead, Americans prostrate themselves to bizarrely-named paper types of seemingly random size: Letter, Legal, Tabloid (Ledger) and all other types of sordid nonsense. We're not even going to include a picture because this is a family-friendly finance blog.

Source: Financial Times

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[–] fhqwgads@possumpat.io 32 points 2 years ago (4 children)

It's a beautiful standard that works wonderfully until you have to deal with any actual measurements. 210 x 297 mm - so easy to remember and divide.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 35 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Letter is 215.9mm x 279.4mm lmao

[–] fhqwgads@possumpat.io 16 points 2 years ago

Good thing Americans don't use metric, that sure would be an awkward size.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago (4 children)

No it's 8.5 by 11.

See? Easy. Also you really have to try to get your hands on something that's a different size. 99 percent of printer paper is Letter.

[–] Threeme2189@lemmy.world 33 points 2 years ago (1 children)

99 percent of printer paper is Letter.

Maybe in America. Over here you won't be able to find Letter it's all A4.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Well yeah. The point is most people never have to interact with any other size.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

8.5" is not any easier to divide than 297mm. Try dividing 8.5" by 8. What is that? 12 pebbles and 14 glibglobs each?

[–] Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)
[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

Ah yes - a system that uses both fractions and decimals!

[–] fhqwgads@possumpat.io 2 points 2 years ago

Don't bother, it seems the metric are allergic to fractions that aren't irrational.

^/s

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

It's 1.06 Which is close enough to just do 1 inch cuts. Super easy. No possible better way to do it.

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The only time I ever encountered letter was when I bought the D&D starter set.

I was confused as to why the paper had this weird size. Then I remember it being a game made in the US.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Well that solves it if WOTC used it then we need to get rid of it. Burn it in a fire. And we'll need a new standard now. We could use the ISO standard but Western Union just handed me a thousand bucks to base it off telegram cards. Oh well.

[–] enbyecho@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Excuse me, I believe you meant to say:

215 ^57^/~64~mm x 279 ^38^/~96~ mm

[–] yukijoou@lemmy.blahaj.zone 27 points 2 years ago (1 children)

i mean, i've never needed to divide the size of a standard sheet of paper - if i need a smaller variant, i can just fold it in half and cut it. when working with paper, it's pretty easy to do physical math, and you rarerly need something that's perfect down to the millimetre

regarding the size- it's just something you learn through life. school supplies lists typically specify the size of notebooks and paper you need to buy in centimetres, so year over year, you quickly learn that A4 is 22:29.7, and the slightly bigger standard notebooks are 24:32

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

so year over year, you quickly learn that A4 is 22:29.7, and the slightly bigger standard notebooks are 24:32

Pretty sure you just justified Americans using Fahrenheit ;)

[–] yukijoou@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Arbitrary numbers become habit

[–] yukijoou@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

i mean, celsius has arbitrary numbers too - human is 37Β°c, ambiant is 17Β°c, cooking is 180Β°c, etc.

[–] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 years ago

You forgot the /s

[–] uis@lemm.ee 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

A4 is rectangle with 1:sqrt(2) aspect ratio and 1/16 m^2 area.

[–] fhqwgads@possumpat.io 2 points 2 years ago

1/16? That doesn't seem very metric. They should have made it a tenth like everything else metric. That would be an easy system.

^/s

[–] beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 years ago

I don’t disagree! And in the interest of fairness I feel compelled to include an obligatory xkcd:

https://xkcd.com/2937/

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

300-3 isn't that hard to remember. also i don't know why you would need to divide it. they're both divisible by 3 if that helps.